Tag: Summer Break

Welcome to Summer?

If you want to see pure exhaustion, find a teacher who has just finished a long school year. It does not matter the level that they teach, this is the moment in their busy schedule where they have plowed through the final assessments, attended all of those important milestones in their students’ lives such as graduation or promotion, and have tidied up their classrooms enough so it will look like they care about the way outsiders perceive them. The end of the year is a mad dash at the end of a long marathon, and it takes the last remnants of energy that any educator has left in their tanks. I know that when I make my way out of campus for that final time of the school year, carrying my milk crate full of my personal effects, I feel completely spent like I want to flop down on a couch looking to run the laps on television with the remote in my hand. It is about all my mind can handle at this time, but I know in my heart that it will not last for very long.

After all, it is summertime! This time of the year that I find my own choices to do with as I will, and the television will just not satisfy my craving for adventure, and intellectual stimulation. There are so many books I want to read, so many games I want to play, and so many places I want to see that I cannot let that pure exhaustion plant me in my living room. I have to get out, and see what the world has to offer. This means that I look deep within myself to find that reserve I know is down there.

Every teacher has this reserve. They pull from it constantly. It usually comes at the beginning of the day, during a hurried lunch, or right after the final bell when a troubled student stumbles into their room to look for some kind of guidance. This could be anything from help with their writing to advice about relationships to just a friendly face that they need at that exact moment. It is part of the teacher’s job to put aside what they are doing, and all of their worries and concerns, to take care of the needs of their student. And people tend to forget that it is not just one student. The stream of students can sometimes feel like it is ongoing, and at the end of the year that stream really starts to surge. Add on to this, all of the little things a teacher needs to do at the end of the year: create and grade exams, calculate final grades, and tie up any loose ends, and you have the perfect storm where that reserve well will quickly run dry.

The management of a classroom is another thing that most people do not consider when talking about the drain on teachers. I recently had a talk with a friend of mine who works outside of academia about this. He is a manager of a group of twelve people and he was telling me how exhausting it could be to make sure that all of these people are getting the work done that needs to get done. I had to chuckle a little bit because managing twelve people sounds like heaven. He did not consider that a high school teacher has at least five classrooms of people that they have to manage. I am one of the lucky ones that work internationally, so the schools I have worked at cap their classroom sizes at twenty-two students, but that is even worse in classrooms in the United States where due to budgetary concerns, classrooms have exceeded thirty students in them, and I have heard in some places up to fifty-five.

This is why summer is so important to teachers. For those who teach the early years, it is a time to participate in more grown-up activities, to return to that time in their lives where they can once again be adults, to have conversations grounded in logic and reason. For those who teach in secondary schools, it is a time for them to enjoy life free of the hormones and drama that comes with the teenage years, to have days filled with people who are motivated to do what needs to get done and they do not have to be the ones to motivate them, and to have a life free from the constant pressure that their career places on them. It is a time for the teachers to recharge their batteries and get ready to take on the challenges of the next year.

Most summers, it takes a couple of weeks to get caught up on sleep, and find that restful state that is conducive to most other people in the world. It sometimes takes three to four weeks before teachers can let go of the worries of being a teacher and relax enough to feel somewhat human. It is also around this time that teachers start to see the end of summer approaching, so they have to place up mental blocks to avoid the stress that comes with the dawn of a new school year. With that block in place, they can usually to get a place of calm by the start of the school year so they can have the patience and resolve to make it through another one. So when you see a teacher taking it easy for some time have some empathy and understand where they are coming from. It is not an easy job, and the break is a necessary evil so they can do their job well. It is an act of kindness that will go far and help to prepare the next generation of the challenges they will face in this world, hopefully making it a better place overall.

At the End of the Americas: My Time in Patagonia

It was not exactly what I was thinking of when I think of Summer Break. Most of the time I get visions of hot weather, lying on the beach, and roaming around the world. Of course, most of the time when I think of Summer Break, this happens during the months of June, July, and August, not January and February. Then again, I had never lived in the southern hemisphere, and never really thought of this time of the year as the summertime, so when I got to my first Summer Break, I thought of the one place where I could visit that would let me experience the travel fun of Summer Break, but give me a little chill that I have become accustomed to this time of the year, and the place that was closest to me where I could achieve this goal was Patagonia, the very southern tip of South America where summer does happen, but more like I would see if I had visited Alaska, or some place in Scandinavia.

When I thought of going to a place where the sun set for only a couple of hours a night, and the weather of summer does not reach as well as some other place closer to the equator, I had visions of my time spent in Iceland. It was amazing, but it is also a hard place to stay in. We had encountered a lot of rain there, and the wind can be brutal. I was pleasantly surprised to not see the same thing in Patagonia though we did have some rain, and one day of brutal wind. It was so bad that things would just blow off of us and disappear over the mountain ridge. Also when renting our car, they showed us how to open up the doors to prevent the wind catching them and blowing them off the car.

Despite the possibility of harsh conditions, life is still able to find a way. I know I should not have been surprised by all of the wildlife that I would find out there, it still shocked me. The animals varied from guanaco, a large relative to the llama, to the fox, to the condor, and even puma which we were not fortunate to see. Still, almost every day out there we encountered an animal that was living its best life despite the fact that they also had to contend with the wind, and rain, and probably even harsher conditions when it is no longer summer.

Even though we had some amazing days, it still did not feel like summer. A lot of that probably had to do with the fact that we had to always carry layers of clothes with us wherever we went. At any time the weather could go from sunny and warm to windy and cold, and if I did not have a rain coat with me at all times, there was the possibility of getting drenched in a torrential downpour. It just meant that we had to do a little extra planning every day before we left our place to go and adventure out into the exciting things we could find at the tip of the Americas.

And the surprises came from many places other than the natural beauty that we came out there to see. I will be honest that I did not have grand expectations for the food. It is not like Chile and Argentina are either known for their cuisine, and coming from Peru meant that there would probably be a step down in the quality of food. This was not always the case. I was able to have parrilla which is a grilled food where you see whole animals slowly rotating over an open fire, and that was spectacular. But I was also able to find great seafood, bar-b-q, and some sandwiches that were nothing like I had ever had before. I still do not know how to describe the cuisine in Patagonia, but I can tell you that there are some places, especially in Puerto Natalis, that are delicious, and can compete with many other countries out there.

I also thought that the language would not be that big of a barrier considering that I am starting to pick up a little Spanish. I would even go as far as to say that my Spanglish es muy bueno. Spanish is the main language used in this part of the world, and I was able to get by okay when reading it. It was when I had to interact with the locals that my limited Spanish did not do so well. I have gotten used to the Peruvian accent, and the Chilean and Argentinian accents are dramatically different. I have to really concentrate on what people were saying, and I still could not get it because of this barrier. Still, it is a big tourist destination, and there was plenty of English spoken in the region, so it never prevented me from having a great time.

I was also surprised by the amount of German I found there. I am not talking about German visitors because that happens everywhere in the world. I am talking about the German influence that can be found in this part of the world. There were German towns filled with German architecture serving German food. I was not aware that the German people were also some of the ones who immigrated to this part of the world, and I knew that after World War II that some Germans came out here. But I never thought that I would see their influence in the towns, and people.

After a while, I started to look closely at all of my surroundings, looking for those surprises. They started to pop up all over the place, one part familiar, and yet at the same time exotic enough to remind me that I was in a different place, experiencing a season during the time of the year I was not expecting it. The whole trip became another moment of wonder and made Patagonia one of those places that I will carry with me wherever I go.

Of course, the real attraction to this part of the world is the natural beauty. It seems as if Patagonia is one of the untouched places left in the world. Yes, there are the towns filled with restaurants and hotels, but they are a ways from the natural attractions that can be found out there. Tours do come through to drop off a bunch of tourists. Still, if you plan your time right, you can find yourself in some spectacular locations where it feels like you are the only ones there.

It did not take me long to adjust to the change of seasons and accept what I was seeing as part of my Summer Break. I got into the groove of the towns and forgot that my family living on the other half of the world was enduring a cold, and bitter winter. I do not think that I will have a problem making this adjustment as I continue to live in the southern hemisphere. Jus like the dogs that we ran into in all of the places we visited, I start to become comfortable with my surroundings and enjoyed them for what they had to offer when they were willing to offer it.

Until next time, enjoy those seasons whenever they are given to you.

Missing My Puppy

Don’t get me wrong, being a teacher and getting a long break during the summer is great. Being a teacher in an international setting, it is a necessity of life. It is a time for us to recharge our batteries, and travel back to our home countries so we can see our families. I really enjoy this time off for these reasons, but it is not always as easy as it seems. There are a couple of drawbacks. We spend a couple of months every year living out of a suitcase, and leaving behind the lives we have built in those faraway places. Sometimes, there are others that we have left behind that we really start to miss as we continue on our long trips. It is about the time that we are supposed to be getting back to those lives that those people we left behind start to be thought about a lot. In my case, it is my puppy that I miss the most, and can’t wait to see again soon.

We got Zoey in late January of this year, and she is a little bit of a handful. She was a rescue dog who got picked up off the side of the road in Amman when she was tiny. We met her a few months later when they believed that she was about a year old. She was playful and knew how to use that to her advantage. We instantly fell in love with her, and a week later, she was living in our home. Even though she looked like a full grown dog, what we did not know at the time was she had a lot of puppy still in her. She still had a lot of energy that took some time to work out of her, and when we had to go to work, she would have separation anxiety. It caused some moments that made living with her difficult, but that is what it means to have to train a puppy to come to an agreement where we can all be happy with each other.

Zoey had a bunch of stinker moments as well. She knows that she shouldn’t be on the bed, but every morning when she believes that it is time to get up, she will hop on the bed, and try to cuddle with us. It is adorable, but at that same time, I know that I cannot let it continue; otherwise, she will start to think that she can do it whenever she wants. It forces me to get up and get her needs taken care of, even if I have another hour of sleep that I can get that morning.

She is also a little destructive. We are constantly looking for new toys for her that she won’t be able to destroy, and when she does not get her way, she will rip up her blankets, or bed. We even had an incident with a couch, and will have to buy a new one when we move out of our house. This has made Zoey a more expensive dog than we intended.

So, why am I excited to get back to her if she is such a stinker? Despite all of her drawbacks that we have with her, she is still has a charm that draws you to her. We get to go on long walks with her where her infinite curiosity allows me to explore the neighborhood I live in, and her desire to be friends with everybody has introduced me to new people in our neighborhood. We do go out in our backyard from time to time, and I will kick a soccer ball around that she loves to chase after and carry in her mouth, and if she isn’t into that at the time, she still loves to play her own version of keep away in our yard.

Zoey also will calm down eventually, and when she does, she turns into the cuddliest of canines. She will lay down on me while I am watching television, and give me a kiss from time to time to remind me that I am there. She also will pat her paws while she sleeps and when she is having a good dream. And the best part comes when I come home everyday. People who own dogs know what this moment is like. The expression of unconditional love that happens as the dog rushes to greet you is unforgettable. They are all paws and wagging tails as they wish to show you how excited they are that you are back home. No matter how long you are gone for, eight hours or fifteen minutes, they will always greet you in this way. It is that love that can turn a terrible day into a great one.

This is the greeting I am looking forward to when I get back home. I know that she can be a stinker at times, but I am looking forward to seeing Zoey again. It is just an indication that I am ready for summer to wrap up so I can get to a life that I left behind a couple of months ago. It has been great to have this break, and I have enjoyed seeing all of the people I have gotten to revisit with during this time, but I am looking forward to getting back to the folks in my other life, especially my puppy.

A Summer of Adventure

The two favorite words of teachers and children have been uttered numerous times over the last couple of weeks, Summer Break. It has been a rough couple of years with the ever-changing landscape of school due to the conditions of the world, but we have finally emerged from that to a new world of possibilities. There are still a few lingering effects of the pandemic, such as the need to wear masks on international flights, and the occasional PCR test to make sure that you are not carrying the disease to strange and remote parts of the world. Still, every day, a new restriction is being lifted, and it looks like it will be the perfect opportunity to travel the world again.

I woke up this morning on my second full day of Summer Break knowing that I will spend the majority of it moving from place to place. I will traveling to many different parts of the United States, sometimes for family, sometimes for friends, and sometimes for business. I will also start my adventure with a three week trek across Iceland. It is a promise for something I have not gotten to experience for a long time, and though I am a little nervous about traveling this way again, I am also really excited for the adventure to begin.

I am sure this is the same for many of you out there. If there is one thing that living this pandemic has taught us is that life is meant to be lived, and we should not put off those things that we have always wanted to experience in our lives. These opportunities can easily be taken away from us for financial reasons, war, or in the case of the last few years, a pandemic. Now that things have opened up again, I am going to take advantage of it. I hope you join me during the next couple of months on my journey, or more importantly, I hope that you take advantage of your opportunities yourself to go out and see those things that you have always wanted to see. Who knows, maybe our paths will cross while out there and we can make a part of our story together.